Each week Bristol Business News gives a prominent member of the city’s business community the last word on its weekly e-bulletin. This week Dominic Hogg, chairman of Eunomia Research & Consulting, answers our 10 questions.
What was the LAST: 
Film you watched? Brooklyn – I watched it on TV with my wife Rita.
Book you read? Last fiction was Carlos Ruiz Zafon’s novel Shadow of the Wind. Just great story telling – like a Charles Dickens novel, set in Barcelona. The last not fiction book was Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman.
Music you bought? I confess I’m not a frequent music buyer – and I tend to buy older stuff, or classical music, from second-hand shops when I do. I still have the record player and amplifier that I was given by my Mum and Dad on my 21st birthday. How many can say that about their i-became-obsolete-yesterday-player?
Concert or play you went to? The Cherry Orchard by Chekhov at the Old Vic last Friday.
Sporting event you attended? Bath v Exeter at The Rec. My brother used to play for Bristol and played for England B. I used to play a lot but ruptured my spleen in a game when I was 23. They didn’t take the spleen out, so I was told ‘stick to tiddly winks’.
Holiday you went on? I just had a staycation – cycling, some swimming, visiting my Mum, and getting out in the garden. Otherwise, it was the Amalfi Coast at the end of last summer/early autumn – we had our honeymoon there and it rained all the time. We’d been wanting to go back for some time (22 years!) and we got lucky with the weather. I’ve got a conference presentation to do in Stavanger in June and I’m planning a holiday in the fjordland around Bergen on the back of it.
Restaurant you ate in? This is where the money that I don’t spend on music tends to go. I ate yesterday with a colleague at Harbour & Browns at Wapping Wharf. My first time there.
Thing that annoyed you? Unnecessary noise. There are so many environmental problems confronting us today that noise tends to receive less attention than is warranted by the damage it causes – to mental health and wellbeing. A real bugbear for me is scaffolders ‘guns’ being used at weekends. All you hear is this rasping sound of metal on metal reverberating round the neighbourhood. I think we all need, and deserve, some peace.
Thing that made you laugh out loud? If I say ‘my wife’, does that count? A shrewd observer of people with a particular way with words. Weekend morning coffees rarely go by without some pretty loud guffaws. Much of the laughter is at my own expense.
Piece of good advice you were given? Health is wealth. That’s from my mother in law. Slightly more humorously, I also remember my Mum’s advice – I was the youngest of five kids and it wasn’t always easy – she used to say ‘eat the expensive bits’. My wife says I eat like someone who’s just been freed from a prisoner of war camp, and of course, in my job, wasting food just isn’t on. And a very smart bloke on my PhD programme said ‘Whenever a new book comes out, go and read an old one.’ He was making the point that, especially in the social sciences, there aren’t many genuinely new ideas. I think he’s right. We have so much information now at our disposal, but I wonder whether we’re not becoming far less wise in what we use it for.
Dominic Hogg grew up in Bristol and founded the leading environmental research consultancy Eunomia Research & Consulting in 2001. The growing company has its head office in Queen Square, Bristol, as well as offices in London, Manchester, Brussels, Glasgow, New York and New Zealand. Dominic has worked in the environmental field for more than 25 years as a campaigner, researcher and consultant. He has developed a reputation for pushing the boundaries of what can be done for the environment within the bounds of economic viability and his recent work includes supporting the EU’s DG Environment with technical analysis around the Circular Economy package and leading research that informed the European Commission’s Plastic Strategy.
